UW-Green Bay nursing program continues using cutting-edge technology

GREEN BAY — The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Professional Program in Nursing is one of five UW System campuses with nursing programs continuing to use a federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant to enhance educational technology in nursing courses.

This Wisconsin Technology Collaborative Nursing Education (WI TECNE) grant involves nursing faculty “scholars” from each campus—UW-Green Bay, UW-Madison, UW-Eau Clare, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Oshkosh—and community nursing “scholars” from Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College, College of Menominee Nation, and the Regional Office of the Division of Public Health. Together, nursing professionals are working together to develop new ways to study nursing with advanced technologies.

The UW-Green Bay nursing program is currently in the third year of the five-year grant. Each year of the grant focuses on a specific project. To date, several campus projects have been completed to bring UW-Green Bay nursing education to the cutting edge of technology.

Year one of the grant was hosted by UW-Madison and focused on the integration of tele-health technology into online courses. As a result, the Theoretical Foundations in Nursing course at UW-Green Bay has a learning activity that integrates nursing theory and tele-health, enhancing the delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies.

Year two of the grant was hosted by UW-Eau Claire and focused on the use of human simulation mannequins, known as “SimMan.” Scholars from the Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College nursing program developed a cardiac emergency scenario for their SimMan, while UW-Green Bay scholars created SimMan educational videos in collaboration with UW-Eau Claire’s nursing program. The SimMan videos are used in a learning activity that analyzes nursing expertness.

Other year two educational technology projects underway include the development of a new collaborative course, “Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Health,” between the departments of nursing and geography at UW-Green Bay.

Teaching through virtual world software program called “Second Life” is the focus of the third and current year of the grant.
The UW-Green Bay nursing program has built a virtual island called the “UWGB Nursing Complex” in Second Life. Soon, meetings and student learning activities will be conducted on this virtual island, bringing together students and faculty in the form of avatars (cartoon computerized characters) from across Wisconsin and the nation.

Continuing with the virtual education, podcasts, wikis and blogs for online courses have been created and placed into courses to enhance learning.

UW-Milwaukee will host year four of the grant with a focus on problem-based learning.

The fifth and final year of the grant will be hosted at UW-Green Bay, and concentrate on e-learning.